Broken Age - Double Fine's Kickstarter Adventure Game

[J_C]

You are riding on the word "novel"? Really? A poor choice of word?

 

[J_C]

"I don't care and didn't read it" isn't a much better argument.

It wasn't meant to be an argument.

 

[Blackthorne]

Blackthorne

What could your people do with a budget of 3 million?

Sigh. Who knows. Probably buy a Porshe and promise a video game I'd never deliver, sadly.


Bt

 

[Jaesun]

At least you are honest.

 

[toro]

I hope it took a lot of time to write this novell. Because I don't care and didn't read it. Just keep parroting what others already said.

If that post is what you consider was a novel, no wonder you think Broken Age is a good game.

To be honest, you are wasting your time with this one. He will not admit he is wrong and it will champion the shit out of Broken Age/ Double Fine until the end.

 

[J_C]

I hope it took a lot of time to write this novell. Because I don't care and didn't read it. Just keep parroting what others already said.

If that post is what you consider was a novel, no wonder you think Broken Age is a good game.

To be honest, you are wasting your time with this one. He will not admit he is wrong and it will champion the shit out of Broken Age/ Double Fine until the end.

Yep, I really don't understand why some people are parrotting the things I argued about a thousand times. They think the game is shit, fine, they can have their own opinion. I don't agree with it and I won't change mine for the thousand +1st time.

 

[Blackthorne]

At least you are honest.

In reality? It is true, I don't have the consideration of running a medium sized studio from San Francisco, and that IS definitely a budgetary concern. We work remotely from all over the world, but with a larger budget, I'd say I could bring everybody together for at least a few weeks of working side-by-side. The amount of work we could get done, working together, would be amazing. When I went to GDC with my producing partner from Australia, and another programmer from QFI, in our Hotel room, we did a whole ton of work on stuff there. Also, I could hire additional artists and programmers to get the game done quicker, and have all the content we'd want to have in there. Avoiding feature creep is the tough part, and I think that's where many developers, both large and small, struggle.

In the end, I couldn't honestly say what I'd do with three millions dollars. We could actually make several games for that much, probably! But we're a much smaller group, we have a much smaller audience. Speaking as a small developer, I don't envy the decisions and things some other larger studios have to make. I can see the positives and negatives that DoubleFine have had to deal with in this project, and knowing how much stress I went through making our game, worrying about getting it out, hoping people would like it, worrying that I did the best job I could - I can only imagine that Tim Schafer's stress levels are through the roof.

But seriously, give me three millions dollars and let's see what we could do, eh people? EH? I promise I won't Lord British ya!!!

Bt

 

[Redlands]

To be honest, you are wasting your time with this one. He will not admit he is wrong and it will champion the shit out of Broken Age/ Double Fine until the end.

Oh I know, I said as much earlier in this thread.

It just bothers me he doesn't want more from the studio that he seems to admire so much than something substandard, and is willing to sit by and watch bad management ruin something he seems to care so much about.

 

[J_C]

It just bothers me he doesn't want more from the studio that he seems to admire so much than something substandard, and is willing to sit by and watch bad management ruin something he seems to care so much about.

Let's get something clear. As I have said previously in this thread, I know that DF mismanaged the funds, they took the wrong approach with development, and they could have made a much better adventure gime with 3 million. I never denied this. What I won't acknowledge is that BA is a bad game. It is shallow, but fun adventure game, with a lighthearted story, interesting artstye (in a good way) and good music. The sales are decent for a point and click adventure game. You previously listed that other adventure games didn't sell more. I don't agree that Tim Schafer's name alone should have skyroceted the sales, since people today don't buy games just because of a name.

 

[Athelas]

I don't agree that Tim Schafer's name alone should have skyroceted the sales, since people today don't buy games just because of a name.

No, they're only willing to donate millions for the mere promise of a game because of a name.

 

[J_C]

I don't agree that Tim Schafer's name alone should have skyroceted the sales, since people today don't buy games just because of a name.

No, they're only willing to donate millions for the mere promise of a game because of a name.

Sigh... And the people who are willing to pay for a game only because Tim Schafer already donated on the Kickstarter and won't buy the game a second time. The people who don't care about a name probably didn't donate on the KS, and those people won't buy a game just because of Tim's name.

 

[Metro]

Go bang a milf. Actually, in your case you drop the 'ilf' part.

Fake/real edit: Also Tim can always MOVE THE FUCK OUT OF SAN FRANCISCO THE MOST EXPENSIVE PLACE TO LIVE/WORK IN THE UNITED STATES. Last time I checked you didn't need to live any particular place to develop a computer game. Chris Jones did it from Utah.

 

[RPGMaster]

Go bang a milf. Actually, in your case you drop the 'ilf' part.

Fake/real edit: Also Tim can always MOVE THE FUCK OUT OF SAN FRANCISCO THE MOST EXPENSIVE PLACE TO LIVE/WORK IN THE UNITED STATES. Last time I checked you didn't need to live any particular place to develop a computer game. Chris Jones did it from Utah.

Apparently the company is named after a sign in SF and it is essential to the spirit of the company to stay in SF.

This is the type of fairy logic that allows you to slurge $3m in less than a year.

 

[Aeschylus]

Go bang a milf. Actually, in your case you drop the 'ilf' part.

Fake/real edit: Also Tim can always MOVE THE FUCK OUT OF SAN FRANCISCO THE MOST EXPENSIVE PLACE TO LIVE/WORK IN THE UNITED STATES. Last time I checked you didn't need to live any particular place to develop a computer game. Chris Jones did it from Utah.

Please, San Fransisco is only number 3, having a studio there is entirely reasonable.

 

[tuluse]

I don't think the high cost of living is what made BA bad.

I think firstly, it's the design. He wanted to make a game so easy every retarded gamer who's thinks that Telltale's the Walking Dead is the height of game design could beat it without getting stuck.

Secondly, it's poor planning and production techniques used by Double Fine. Have you ever heard Tim talk about pre-production? What it means to be in alpha or beta? The fact that he was writing the second act, after the first act was released is a dead giveaway. That should all have been long done.

 

[J1M]

Can someone give me a review that compares and contrasts $4m Tim Schafer adventure game to Primordia? I have been playing that lately and found it to be a good distraction before bed.

 

[J_C]

Fake/real edit: Also Tim can always MOVE THE FUCK OUT OF SAN FRANCISCO THE MOST EXPENSIVE PLACE TO LIVE/WORK IN THE UNITED STATES. Last time I checked you didn't need to live any particular place to develop a computer game. Chris Jones did it from Utah.

Like SF was the main reason why they went over budget. No, they would have mismanaged either way. Maybe they have spared some money if they lived in another place, but this wasn't the deciding factor.

Go bang a milf.

Already doing it, thanks.

Secondly, it's poor planning and production techniques used by Double Fine. Have you ever heard Tim talk about pre-production? What it means to be in alpha or beta? The fact that he was writing the second act, after the first act was released is a dead giveaway. That should all have been long done.

The whole documentary was about pre-production. Maybe they fucked it up, but they still had a detailed plan, they even showed it on video.

 

[tuluse]

The whole documentary was about pre-production. Maybe they fucked it up, but they still had a detailed plan, they even showed it on video.

They were creating systems, art, puzzles and writing all at the same time. That's preproduction and production happening at the same time.

 

[J_C]

The whole documentary was about pre-production. Maybe they fucked it up, but they still had a detailed plan, they even showed it on video.

They were creating systems, art, puzzles and writing all at the same time. That's preproduction and production happening at the same time.

No. They were creating systems, puzzles and writing on PAPER first, and only after that they started implementing them in the game. Just like how it is meant to be. Mainwhile they were experimenting with the artstyle in the engine.

 

[m_s0]

Go bang a milf. Actually, in your case you drop the 'ilf' part.

Fake/real edit: Also Tim can always MOVE THE FUCK OUT OF SAN FRANCISCO THE MOST EXPENSIVE PLACE TO LIVE/WORK IN THE UNITED STATES. Last time I checked you didn't need to live any particular place to develop a computer game. Chris Jones did it from Utah.

Where would they go barhopping for project codenames if they moved out, though?

 

[J_C]

Go bang a milf. Actually, in your case you drop the 'ilf' part.

Fake/real edit: Also Tim can always MOVE THE FUCK OUT OF SAN FRANCISCO THE MOST EXPENSIVE PLACE TO LIVE/WORK IN THE UNITED STATES. Last time I checked you didn't need to live any particular place to develop a computer game. Chris Jones did it from Utah.

Where would they go barhopping for project codenames if they moved out, though?

Exactly! There are important factors to consider here.

 

[RPGMaster]

The whole documentary was about pre-production. Maybe they fucked it up, but they still had a detailed plan, they even showed it on video.

They were creating systems, art, puzzles and writing all at the same time. That's preproduction and production happening at the same time.

No. They were creating systems, puzzles and writing on PAPER first, and only after that they started implementing them in the game. Just like how it is meant to be. Mainwhile they were experimenting with the artstyle in the engine.

What are you talking about? They were like 3/4th done before Tim had a finished script. The production team were sitting around waiting for Tim to deliver the "puzzles" they could implement into the game, which may be way they're so shallow - they didn't have the time to make more indepth ones.

He didn't finish the script until Episode 11 of the documentary, which is 4 episodes after the one dealing with the financial crisis the game had become.

 

[ghostdog]

Yeah, going for a Kickstarter with absolutely nothing, not even something on paper, was a bad move. Tim not only had to push himself to come up with something *awesome* ASAP he had to rush the puzzle design too. It was a bad start from the beginning, that put them at least half a year behind.

Also, in hindsight, even if I liked it quite a bit, I believe that the documentary hurt the game's design process, hurt DF's image and definitely hurt sales.

 

[Boleskine]

This conversation between Tim and Ron, which took place shortly before the Kickstarter launched, is pretty interesting. They talk about their plans for the game without knowing that they'd get so much money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re_LWmRJK-g

In retrospect raising $3+ million was probably the worst thing to happen to DFA. Tim had to design a bigger game, but the mechanics and puzzles/gameplay didn't scale with the budget as much as the art did. If we took Broken Age's gameplay and puzzles, but put it into a game with 10% of the budget, the reception might have been better. But for that much money, people simply expected a deeper level of gameplay.

This all has me thinking about something else. As much as I adore and idolize the adventure game greats of the 90s, the whole kickstarter process almost has me thinking that they simply aren't great at making adventures anymore. Projects from ex-Sierra designers have struggled - Moebius had poor reviews, while Spaceventure develops very slowly and Hero-U is a mystery. We'll see how others like Obduction, Armikrog, and Dreamfall Chapters do, but it seems like the harsh reality of the small adventure market and the burgeoning mobile/casual markets has some of these developers straddling the fence. Instead of watering down their products to reach wider markets, they should focus more on preserving the core adventure experience many of them pitched in their kickstarter campaigns.

 

[felipepepe]

In retrospect raising $3+ million was probably the worst thing to happen to DFA. Tim had to design a bigger game, but the mechanics and puzzles/gameplay didn't scale with the budget as much as the art did. If we took Broken Age's gameplay and puzzles, but put it into a game with 10% of the budget, the reception might have been better. But for that much money, people simply expected a deeper level of gameplay.

Play this: http://www.doublefine.com/games/host_master

It was done in 2009, by Tim + two other guys, and it's available for free. I had more fun with it than with all of Broken Age. It's what fans wanted, a classic old-school game with tons of humour and personality, interesting puzzles and lots of interaction. Double Fine said that the idea for the original budget was to do something like this... but then they got 3 million and it all went downhill...